Alabama Department of Archives and History

This Week in Alabama History

May 31 - June 6

Featured Event:

Aliceville's World War II prisoner-of-war camp receives its first contingent of captured German soldiers. By the end of the week, Aliceville housed 3,000 prisoners. Nearly 5,000 POWs eventually would be imprisoned in the facility, the largest of four such camps in Alabama.

Other Events this Week

The NAACP is barred from operating in Alabama. Montgomery County Circuit Judge Walter B. Jones issued the order at the request of Attorney General John Patterson, who argued that the NAACP was not properly registered in the state. Jones also fined the organization $100,000 and ordered it to turn over its records and membership lists to the state. The ban lasted until October 1964.

During a mass meeting at Birmingham's Sardis Baptist Church, Fred Shuttlesworth and other local black ministers establish the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). Founded in response to the State of Alabama's recent ban on the NAACP which lasted eight years, ACMHR was central to the civil rights movement in Birmingham.

Listen: Click the play button below to hear Archives Staff discuss this event on Alabama Public Radio.